Editorial: More gambling brings more chance of addiction
The Alliance of American Football kicked off its premier season over the weekend.
Well, that’s not quite accurate because this new professional football league does not believe in kickoffs. It also does not believe in kicking extra points, forcing teams to run or pass.
Aside from those and a few other unique rules, the new league should be very familiar to football fans with its roster of coaches and players, most with National Football League ties. The season is designed to complement, not compete with, the NFL, starting right after the Super Bowl and ending before the draft.
But there is one big difference that makes this an urgent topic outside of the sports pages. While the founders, who own all the teams and have contracts with all coaches and players, were setting the schedule and designing the uniforms, they also were creating new ways to bet on the sport.
Gamblers will be able to watch on an app and bet at the same time. One of the investors is MGM, new owner of the Yonkers raceway and racino and a company sure to be applying for a gaming license once the state gets to the new round of allocations or even sooner.
MGM and others are impressed by the tech more than the teams because they envision a time when people will be able to bet not only on the outcome of the game but on the play being called — run or pass? — and many other possibilities.
Right now, such action would be available only in a few states. With New York apparently on the verge of joining that crowd, with visions of sports betting enhancing the bottom line at the four new casinos, state legislators have a bit more to consider beyond the amount of revenue they think betting can bring in.
While they consider that, they need also to look at the most recent warning coming from the state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, who said that while opportunities to gamble legally in New York have exploded over the past decade, the state has done very little to understand the kinds of problems it can bring or the kinds of treatment that are necessary.
“Gambling addiction destroys lives and families,” he said. “When New York expanded casino gaming, it took on the responsibility of making sure there were adequate services to meet the rise in addiction that comes with it.”
But it has not.
His warning came in an audit, one that raised questions but did not offer any conclusion. What the state needs to do is make sure that the relevant part of government, in this case the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, has the resources it needs to study the topic and propose plans for treatment and prevention.
When the auditors asked if the state has the resources to do this, they came up with a clear answer — they have no way of knowing.
Before the state allows people to bet on whether the next play will be a run and if so how far the player will go, legislators need to be sure that we are prepared for the consequences.
READ NEXT
Terms of Service
